10-year-old Wadjda lives in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries. After a fight with a neighborhood boy, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale and wants it desperately so that she can beat him in a race. But her mother won't allow it, because their society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl's virtue, so Wadjda decides to raise the money herself. Wadjda's plans are thwarted when she is caught running various schemes at school, but as she is losing hope, she hears of a cash prize for a Koran recitation competition. She devotes herself to the memorization and recitation of the verses and her teachers begin to see her as a model, pious girl. The competition won't be easy, especially for a troublemaker like Wadjda, but she is determined to continue fighting for her dreams....